Facts

PHOTO GALLERY

All told, there were 30 of them — men who were arrested last week — including on Valentine's Day — in an undercover operation to catch online predators soliciting sex from children.

“Hi I'm a 14 year old white female looking for sumthing fun to do tonight on V – Day!” read an online post by an undercover agent. A 33-year-old man who responded asked about having sex, then showed up at the house where he thought she lived for some “fun.”

He was arrested, along with the other men who the Sarasota County Sheriff's Office said posted items online seeking sex from minors or responded to what they thought were minors, even traveling to engage with them.

The latest sting further highlights the pervasive problem of adults trying to pay for sex with children online, and raises local concerns as state and federal law enforcement agencies run similar sweeps across the country.

While undercover stings and TV shows like “To Catch a Predator” have raised awareness about adults soliciting sex from children online, the operations in Florida continue to net multiple arrests, stoking concerns among advocates that sex trafficking of children in this region is a greater problem than previously thought.

Law enforcement officials and child advocates say the mass arrests made from such stings point to a disturbing trend: The demand for sex with children persists here.

This most recent sweep raises the arrest total from Sarasota and Manatee stings to nearly 100 people charged in less than a year.

A similar Sarasota County sting last year led to 32 arrests and another in Manatee County led to 43.

“These people know exactly what they are doing,” Sarasota County Sheriff Tom Knight said Wednesday at a press conference in which the sting was announced.

Knight said that going after people prowling the Internet helps keep real children from being abused, and that parents need to be aware of how they can protect their children.

Several of the men arrested last week reportedly asked agents posing as young boys and girls if they were police officers and mentioned not wanting to get caught. Before he was arrested, Sarasota's Jonathan Simonell, 26, is said to have texted a supposed 15-year-old girl from whom he was soliciting sex.

“I want this bad but I don't want to walk in and chris hansen is their like how to catch a predater (sic),” he texted.

Accused of posting or responding to online ads and knowingly asking for sex from a minor, each of the men is charged with soliciting sex online from a child or child's guardian, and then traveling with the intent to have sex with a child.

If convicted, each will be added to a sex offender registry and be sentenced to a minimum of three and a half years in prison on the soliciting and traveling charges. The cases are considered individually in court; depending on other factors, like prior records, a sentence could be as long as 20 years in prison.

Derek Byrd, a defense attorney and president of the Sarasota County Bar, said the sting may raise claims of entrapment in some of the cases.

“Depending on what the law enforcement officer says, it can be entrapment,” Byrd said. “Law enforcement has to talk the person into a crime that the person would not ordinarily commit.”

Arguments are more likely to rest on the issue of intent, Byrd said — whether the person intentionally solicited and intended to have sex with a minor. One man arrested in Sarasota's last sting was acquitted in November, telling the jury he did not believe a parent would allow an adult they met online to have sex with their child. He told the court he planned to report the parent to authorities if the parent was serious.

Although there are a number of sex offenders and predators registered in the area, none of the 30 arrested last week were among those on the registry.

Of the 32 previous Sarasota cases, at least a dozen have been resolved in court, with one acquittal, while the others are still pending.

One person got an additional charge, involving drug paraphernalia, by reportedly bringing along a crack pipe. Another was additionally charged with transmitting harmful materials to minors, after he purportedly attempted to send a 14-year-old girl an explicit photo of himself.

One of the men, Jason Cohen, 37, of Sarasota, reportedly posted on a website that he was looking for younger girls. Using a blocked phone number, police say, he arranged to meet with a 14-year-old girl he thought was living with new foster parents and needed money. He reportedly arrived with condoms and $75, intending to pay an underage girl for sex.

He was met instead by law enforcement agents.

Many of the men described what they wanted in graphic detail and bargained over sex acts, while bragging about their physical attributes and asking for pictures of the minors.

While Craigslist and other websites have built a reputation for attracting sexual prowlers, investigators are trying to keep up with changing technology by throwing their net out through multiple websites, social media networks and mobile apps. Many of the suspects arrested made the initial connection through one online location, before switching to another phone, chat or messaging service.

Video from the recent arrests shows several of the men wailing as agents surrounded and handcuffed them.

“I just want to go home, I didn't do anything wrong, I don't even know why I'm here,” Paul Andrews, 37, said as agents surrounded him. Known in Ybor City for walking around with his large snakes, he told agents his dog and “circus animals” were in his car to show the girl.

But the Sheriff's Office maintains he was there because he had solicited sex on the Internet, talking on the phone twice with someone he thought was a 14-year-old girl before agreeing to have “regular sex” with her.

Staff writer J. David McSwane contributed to this story.

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